Lee Child - MatchUp

Nabila nodded, seemingly stunned at the magnitude of Stephanie’s discovery. “That would be quite a find.”

“And here, near Alexandria. Not on the Nile. She’d discovered it, plotted the coordinates, mapped out what it was. Maybe it was her hope to bring it to the world’s attention. Who knows? Maybe Razi wanted the credit for himself as the vaunted director of the program. Maybe he told her not to be looking here and now he would be completely shown up. Maybe she brought him here to finally show it to him.”

“What about this tooth?” Harper asked.

“I think Tina told Razi that Stephanie was going to tell her family about what she’d found, and then the government. Razi would be the man who let a Western woman trump him. I’m sure he and Tina were an item. Maybe Tina put a drug in Stephanie’s drink, at the apartment after she left the bar, or there was a struggle and then Tina and Razi brought her out here and killed her.”

“How?” Nabila asked.

“Tire iron,” Harper said. “That’s what she’s telling me. That’s what killed her. It’s out here somewhere.”

She started walking away from Stephanie’s resting place.

Hauck just followed.

“She’s looking for the murder weapon?” Nabila said, disbelievingly. “Out here?”

“You’re the one who chided me yesterday for thinking so Western. You have to believe.”

Harper kept kicking up dust and dirt as if on the scent of something. Fifty yards away, as if she had a divining rod in her head, she stopped at a small clump of dirt in the arid earth. Hauck bent down and swept away loose dirt with his hands.

“There are fragments of her skull on it,” Harper said, opening her eyes as if her work was done.

Hauck kept digging.

He removed a rock from the ground and pawed at the earth. Finally he came upon the edge of something promising.

Metal.

“Don’t touch it,” Nabila said.

“Been doing this twenty years.”

He took out a handkerchief.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Then he freed the metal from the ground.

A tire iron.

He winked at Harper. “Never doubted you.”

“Can we head back to town now?” Harper said. “I really need to see about Tolliver. He might want something to eat by now.”

Hauck grinned. “I think we can do just that.”

THEY WERE ALL GOING HOME in the morning.

Hauck to D.C. through London. Harper and Tolliver on their return trip through Frankfurt. Their work was done here. Stephanie’s body had been found. Razi had been detained by the police. Whether or not there was enough evidence to convict him in a country like Egypt, a place of influence and power and family, who knew? Hopefully, they would find his fingerprints on the tire iron they’d uncovered. And it would be missing from his own car. Nabila promised she would press the case aggressively. Her eyes had definitely been opened in the past two days.

And so had Hauck’s.

He’d said his good-byes over plates of spaghetti at the hotel’s restaurant. Tolliver wolfed down the food like he hadn’t eaten a meal in weeks.

“If you’re ever in Greenwich, look me up.”

He shook Harper’s hand.

“We never seem to get that far north,” Tolliver said.

“If you ever need a recommendation”—he laid his card on the table—“you know who to call.”

He went upstairs, packed, and made a few calls. He left a message for Naomi he’d return by tomorrow night. Around eleven he came back down for a nightcap and thought he’d take a walk.

Experience the city one last time.

“American bourbon,” he told the Egyptian bartender. He pointed. “That Woodford’ll be fine.”

“Interesting business in Alexandria?” the bartender inquired.

Hauck chuckled and savored a long sip. “You’d never guess.”

“Then relax, sir, and enjoy yourself.”

He sat back and let his mind drift to what lay ahead. At home he had a lot of choices to make, and Naomi was at the center of most of them. Greenwich or D.C.? As he was finishing his bourbon and thinking of going to bed, he spotted someone through the lobby, leaving the hotel.

Harper.

Alone.

Dressed in her jean jacket and college sweatshirt. It was going on midnight, not safe for a woman to be out alone. Especially a Western woman.

He signed the bill and ran after her.

On the street, she made a right turn toward the harbor with a fifty-yard head start. He followed. The night was bright, the moon exceedingly large. A warm breeze blew in from the Sahara to the south.

A sirocco, he recalled.

Harper kept for the harbor at a good pace, as if she knew precisely where she was going. At this late hour she certainly wasn’t catching up on some last-minute souvenir shopping. He wanted to make sure she didn’t find any trouble. Stephanie already proved what could happen.

Harper kept walking.

As if drawn, never looking back.

The streets were mostly dark and empty. The open markets shut up, the shops closed. Occasionally a café leaked music.

But Harper continued on her way.

As she neared the water, it began to grow cooler. The wind picked up. There were more hotels, cafés, and modern businesses. The new Alexandria library was out on the point, the previous one, one of the wonders of the ancient world disappeared centuries ago.

Finally she came to land’s end at the seawall.

Nothing in front of her but the dark harbor.

She walked along the wall, the Mediterranean quietly lapping against it. Past a hotel and a restaurant, everything dark and quiet at this late hour.

At the end of the harbor, she stopped.

Something seemed to be guiding her.

She held out her arms.

The wind kicked up, brisk and warm, whipping her hair. She stepped closer to the water’s edge. For a moment, he was worried she was going to do something crazy. He edged closer, now only about ten feet from her. He didn’t want to scare her.

He was about to ask if everything was all right when she spoke.

“He wants to be found now, Mr. Hauck,” she said, without ever turning around to acknowledge he was there. “He’s ready.”

More wind blew her hair. The moon bathed her in an eerie, almost holy kind of light.

“They brought him here, after he died. It was his favorite among all his cities. The city of his dreams. And it became so. He said it would unite the East and West.”

“You’re speaking of Alexander?”

“He was so young, but he had accomplished so much. There was so much more he wanted to do.” She turned around. “I feel it in his bones.”

“How?” he asked her.

He wanted clarity.

“I can feel his thoughts at his death. It’s perfectly clear.”

She halfway smiled.

Now Hauck’s blood surged with excitement. “Where, Harper?”

“You know what used to be here, don’t you?” She pointed. “The Pharos. The famous lighthouse from ancient times. A beacon to the entire world. That’s where he is.”

In the moonlight, Harper’s skin was eerily white, like alabaster. “He wants to be found now, Mr. Hauck. He said it’s time. He’s ready. There’s a lot of water all around him.”

She walked to the edge, so close for a moment he thought one more step and she would fall into the sea.

But then she stood still, the water lapping over the wall, the wind taking her hair, and she pointed, to the earth that had buried so many civilizations, so many worlds.

“Dig here.”

LISA WANTED TO USE DETECTIVE Regan Pescoli from Grizzly Falls, Montana, in this story. The character is central to her ongoing To Die series. One of John’s most popular characters is Virgil Flowers. He’s an agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, but he’s also an avid fisherman and sportswriter.